This invention relates to a stacking device for paper sheets, such as currency, in which paper sheets transported edgewise one by one are piled up vertically. In recent years, with the increased emphasis in the banking industry on labor saving devices, a currency note arranger has found practical use. This currency note arranger is designed to take out the currency notes one by one from a supply unit, to transport them, and to discriminate reusable from worn-out notes during transportation. After discrimination, both reusable (hereinafter fit) and unfit notes are automatically stacked, for example, in groups of 100 notes, in a stacking box and then bundled. In a device in which the currency notes are transported directly from the transport passage into the stacking box, during high speed, continuous operation one note may be transported before the preceding note is stacked completely. As a result, the leading edge of the succeeding note may strike the preceding note resulting in disruption of the stack.
In a conventional device to obviate the above-mentioned disadvantage, as shown in FIG. 1, currency notes P transported from transport passage A are held in a rotating blade wheel B and are guided into a stacking box C with rotation of the blade wheel B. Blade wheel B is constructed with a plurality of wheel blades E forming a fixed angle with the radius at the point of attachment. Each currency note P is held between surface of wheel cylinder D and a blade E, and these notes P are stacked in stacking box E in an orderly fashion even if they are transported from the transport passage A continuously and at high speed. A sectional stacking mechanism F provided adjacent to wheel B has a sectional stacking member G. As shown by a solid line, sectional stacking member G is positioned behind the path along which notes travel from transport passage A to wheel B. When the number of notes in stacking box E reaches, for example, 100 as detected by a note detector J, mechanism F is operated to rotate sectional stacking member G in the direction of arrow X and to stop it at the position shown by the dotted line. While a group of currency notes (i.e., 100 notes) in stacking box C is discharged into a bundling unit (not shown), sectional stacking member G stacks the succeeding currency notes. When stacking box C becomes empty, stacking member G is rotated to guide the temporarily stacked notes into the stacking box C. Development of sectional stacking mechanism F proved to be an important advance because it allowed currency notes to be stacked continuously without stopping the machine.
However, there is still a risk in these conventional stacking device that currency notes P transported at high speed will strike the sectional stacking member G before they are fully seated between the blades E, resulting in irregular stacking of the currency notes in the stacking box. The reason for this is that sectional stacking member G rotates around a different rotational axis than does blade wheel B. Consequently, portions of the path traveled by stacking member G intersect the path traveled by sheets carried on blade wheel B. Also as a result of the different rotational axes, when stacking member G rotates, there is relative motion between it and blade wheel B, increasing the chance of sheets striking stacking member G. Also notes P held between blades E may be bent by moving sectional stacking member G, stacked in a bent condition in stacking box C, and inclined in the stacking box resulting in a disorderly stack. Furthermore, since sectional stacking mechanism F and wheel B are driven by separate driving mechanisms H and I and the mechanism itself is large, the device suffers the additional disadvantages that the layout is complicated and the machine is large and cumbersome.